Suffering

Lent 1B: Into the Wilderness

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Judean WildernessOLD TESTAMENT: Genesis 9: 8-17

To read the Lectionary Passage from the Old Testament (or the whole story!), click here

This is, obviously, the end of the well-known story. Noah has packed the ark with two of everything and they have spent months cooped up as the rains pounded outside and the flood waters covered the face of the earth. Then he sends the bird out, which returns. He tries again and again and finally, the bird does not return and he assumes that the waters have seceded enough for them to venture out. They begin to load off the ark, probably wondering what they would find.

And now God speaks. And God brings a new covenant, a new promise that from now on all of Creation will be with God, never to be cut off again. And the now-familiar sign appears for the first time—a bow in the clouds, a hint of color as the rains move away, a sign of the promise that God has made. We understand the familiar rainbow as a sign of God’s promise. We look at it and we feel at ease. God will take care of us. In the Celtic tradition, though, the rainbow is a threshold, a bridge between what is and what will be. It’s another Celtic image of one of those “thin places”, places where the air is so thin that what will be can be glimpsed, if only for a moment.

Now we can either look at this story as a sort of children’s story, complete with rainbows and pairs of elephants and zebras or we can look at this story as one depicting a deity who was so angered by the rebellion of the Creation that God wiped it off the face of the earth. Truthfully, neither one works. Indeed, this is a story about rebellion and human sinfulness. (And to be honest, what story is NOT?) But the whole point is that no matter how far the human creation wandered from the Creator, there was a calling back, a return, an offering of love and forgiveness and a chance to begin again. Now, that’s hard for us to fathom too, possibly because we are not good at offering each other “do-overs”. We are not good at understanding a God who would dispense with all means of justified destruction and just offer Presence and Grace and a future filled with hope. It is hard for us to imagine that no matter what we do, no matter what we screw up or blow up or make up, God is offering a chance to return, a chance to be recreated into something that only God can imagine.

In fact, if you read the whole thing, it was God who showed regret. It was God who changed the course of punishment, regardless of how justified it may have been. It was God that offered a chance to begin again. God offers all of Creation a new beginning. It is not a “different Creation”. God doesn’t erase the chalkboard and start writing history again. Rather God takes Creation as it is—sinful, rebellious, human, hurting, afflicted—and breathes grace and mercy in infinite measure into it so that THE creation becomes a NEW Creation.

In her book, Sacred Spaces, Margaret Silf says that “God rejoiced to see his Dream reborn. He desired to mark this moment eternally, as a sign of all creation that hope is more real and permanent than despair. He shone his perfect, invisible light—the light of joy—through all the tears that would ever flow out of human grief and suffering. That invisible light was broken down, through our tears, into all the colours of the rainbow. And God stretched the rainbow across the heavens, so that we might never forget the promise that holds all creation in being.. This is the promise that life and joy are the permanent reality, like the blue of the sky, and that all the roadblocks we encounter are like the clouds—black and threatening perhaps, but never the final word. Because the final word is always ‘Yes’!” (Sacred Spaces: Stations on a Celtic Way, by Margaret Silf, p. 145-146)

In this Lenten season, we will often find ourselves surrounded by darkness. We may find ourselves mired in despair. We might somehow turn up on a road that we never intended to travel. In fact, sometimes we find ourselves in hell. But these are never the final word. Even when tales of a place called Golgotha begin to swirl around us, there is always something more. When we come to the end, God will be there to beckon us into the arms of grace that we might begin again. God has promised recreation.

 

  1. What is your response to this passage?
  2. What, for you, does this “threshold” of the covenant represent?
  3. In what way is this whole season of Lent a “threshold”?
  4. Why is it so difficult for us to fathom a God who offers a new beginning?

 

 

NEW TESTAMENT: 1 Peter 3: 18-22

To read the Lectionary Epistle passage, click here

First Peter is one of the general or catholic epistles. These letters are not attributed to Paul and they are primarily addressed to a group of churches, rather than a specific particular church. This letter speaks to the condition of the churches as they are alienated from the surrounding society and for Christians who in a lot of ways were slandered for their faith. To those who first heard the words in this letter, it was a promise that the powers that were affecting and controlling their lives would not be forever. For this reason, it often provides comfort for believers in troubled times.

It begins with a reminder of Christ’s suffering, without which it would not be possible for us to follow Christ to obedience and encourages readers to not be ashamed of needing to face suffering. The Old Testament reading that we just read provides the data for the claim here that eight persons were on Noah’s ark and reminds us of the covenant made by God with Creation. The flood is used as an analogy for Christian baptism and the whole process of coming to faith. Here baptism, or cleansing (just as the earth was cleansed in the flood) is a resurrection, a re-creation. The whole point is that believers do not need to fear suffering nor fear the powers that be. Their faith and their Baptism has joined or bridged them with Christ. Christ’s story becomes their story.

This is not necessarily a classic salvation tale to which we are accustomed. The writer of this epistle is not preaching the notion of being “saved”. Rather, the reader is being assured of the hope that baptism brings, of the promise of becoming new, recreated, indeed, resurrected. It is a reminder that in baptism, we return to our Creator and we return to the waters in which we were created. And we begin again. For those to whom this letter was written, it was an assurance that the way life was now was not permanent, that the God of Creation was already recreating them into a life beyond what we see, beyond what we know. It was a reminder that the swirling chaos around them and around their church would indeed, like the flood waters so long before, subside and that life would indeed begin anew.

In fact, even the powers of hell cannot impede the recreation that is happening all around us. Now our church chooses to recite the more sanitized version of the Apostles’ Creed but there is an older version that dates back to the 5th century that goes like this: “I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell.” That last sentence is believed to have been loosely taken from this passage. We read that Jesus proclaimed even to the “spirits in prison”. In other words, Jesus descended into hell. And, there, he blew the gates open and the eternally forsaken escaped. In the Middles Ages, it was referred to as the “Harrowing of Hell”. Now, admittedly, there is little basis for this theology but if death hath no sting, why would hell win? If God’s promise extends to all of Creation, then perhaps hell really hath no fury.

Now this is in no way a lessening of the impact or importance of sin. We all know that. We sin. We try not to. But we sin. But even the powers of sin are no match for the promise before us. The writer probably didn’t see baptism as so much a cleansing but, rather, a claiming. We are claimed. The water washes over us and the act of being made new begins. Perhaps this Lenten season of penitence is not so much a call to grovel at the feet of a forgiving God but rather to faithfully follow this God who beckons us home again to begin again. Maybe it truly is the harrowing of whatever hell we find ourselves in. But in order to do that, we have to name our sin and release its power. It’s part of our story. It’s part of what we must tell. And with that, the waters subside and the green earth rises again.

 

  1. What meaning does this passage hold for you?
  2. What meaning for Lent does this passage provide?
  3. It is hard for many of us to imagine “suffering” for our beliefs. What does that mean for you?
  4. In what ways is this Scripture sometimes viewed differently?
  5. How do we in this day and age talk about sin?
  6. What is sin to you?
  7. How do we reconcile the modern notion of “hell” with this passage?

 

 

GOSPEL: Mark 1: 9-15

To read the Lectionary Gospel passage, click here

Once again, we read the account of Jesus’ baptism, a reminder of our own baptism and the covenant and promise that God has made. The writer of Mark then goes into the forty day temptation of Jesus in the wilderness and a summary of Jesus’ ministry. You will remember that the way Mark depicts this, the heavens are “torn apart”, ripped open, if you will, as the barrier between heaven and earth is shattered. Jesus, here, is the intersection, the bridge, between the two. Jesus is the thin place, the threshold of God.

Then Jesus departs into the desert, the place of wildness and wonder. Think about all the stories of wilderness—Israel passing through the wilderness toward liberation. In the same way, Jesus is liberated from the world and we with him. Preparing for this liberation is a journey and involves struggle. For some the struggle is overwhelming. But God is leading us all.

During Lent, we often focus on the temptation (the “Satan” part of the story). But looking at it this way, the desert becomes the threshold through which we journey. It is a time for preparation, a time for readying oneself to claim who God calls you to be—God’s beloved child. And the only choice one has is to repent, to turn around, to change. In this passage, Jesus proclaims that “the time is fulfilled”. He will not use that language again until the Passion begins. Mark’s Gospel story begins in darkness. It begins in the wilderness. It begins in hell. The Spirit had driven him there.

Now, our version of the wilderness is sometimes very difficult to grasp. In our world of perfectly manicured lawns and perfectly coiffed houses, we usually do everything in our power to avoid wilderness in our lives. Wilderness means to us some sort of deprivation and, thus, a loss of power. We do everything we can to see that our lives stay exactly where we want them. We take a pill when we have a pain. We use cosmetics so that we won’t look our age. And who of us would ever be caught without access to a telephone? The wilderness is the thing that we are always trying to run from. The wilderness does not fit into our carefully thought-out plans.

Jesus did not see deprivation but, rather, an emptying of himself before God. In fact, if you think about it, Jesus’ baptism propelled him into the wilderness. Maybe that’s our problem. Maybe we missed our wilderness. Maybe we missed our emptying. This emptying brings us in touch with what we really need—and nothing more. Without our pills and our cosmetics, our cell phones and our tablets, our GPS and our step-trackers, we are vulnerable. Thank God! For when we are powerless, when we are vulnerable, where do we go? We look to the only place we know. Because even we, who are normally so in control of our lives, must look to the compass if we do not know the way. And there, we become acutely aware of God’s ever-presence. It is only when we have truly emptied ourselves that God can fill us with God and there we are nourished and fed by those things for which our souls truly hunger. From this we can grow in God’s spirit.

That’s what Lent is—it’s a pilgrimage through an intentional wilderness. These forty days are our emptying time—the time when we strip all of our preconceptions away and meet God where God is—right there with us. We do not walk this road alone. God is always there. And when we are tempted to once again take control, God will still be there. Lent is the time when we allow God to work on us that we might burst forth on Easter morning in radiant bloom.

 

  1. What meaning does this passage hold for you?
  2. What does this say to you about your own Lenten journey?
  3. What is uncomfortable about this whole image of the wilderness?
  4. What does the wilderness image mean for you?

 

Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

 

Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. (Arundhati Roy)

 

At the center of the Christian faith is the history of Christ’s passion. At the center of this passion is the experience of God endured by the godforsaken, God-cursed Christ. Is this the end of all human and religious hope? Or is it the beginning of the true hope, which has been born again and can no longer be shaken? For me it is the beginning of true hope, because it is the beginning of a life which has death behind it and for which hell is no longer to be feared…Beneath the cross of Christ hope is born again out of the depths. (Jurgen Moltmann)

 

The promised land lies on the other side of a wilderness.{Havelock Ellis}

 

Closing

 

Those of us who walk along this road do so reluctantly. Lent is not our favorite time of year. We’d rather be more active—planning and scurrying around. All this is too contemplative to suit us. Besides we don’t know what to do with piousness and prayer. Perhaps we’re afraid to have time to think, for thoughts come unbidden. Perhaps we’re afraid to face our future knowing our past. Give us the courage, O God, to hear your word and to read our living into it. Give us the trust to know we’re forgiven, and give us the faith to take up our lives and walk. Amen.

 

(“The Walk”, from Kneeling in Jerusalem, by Ann Weems, p. 21)

 

 

Proper 28A: Enough

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Coins-in-a-jarOLD TESTAMENT: Judges 4: 1-7

To read the Old Testament Lectionary passage, click here

The Book of Judges portrays a major transition in the Biblical history of Israel. Prior to this, Israel was under the leadership of Moses in the wilderness and then Joshua in the conquest of the land in Canaan. After the Book of Judges, Israel was ruled by kings, beginning with Saul, David, and Solomon. This is the time in between, a time of twelve warrior rulers, called judges, who led Israel for brief periods in times of military emergency. Most scholars think that many of these passages do not represent true accounts but have rather been reshaped and edited (redacted) and so cannot be necessarily reconstructed into a succinct historical account.

This passage begins with the first phase of the story of the beginning of the decline of Israel and the decline in the effectiveness of the individual rulers. The repeating pattern throughout judges is present here: (1) The Israelites do evil, (2) The Lord turns them over to their enemy, (3) Israel cries out to the Lord, and (4) The Lord raises up a new judge who delivers them (for a period of time). We are not really clear here who the actual judge is. The three characters here are Deborah, who is a female prophetess who acts as a sort of arbitrating judge, Barak, a military general, and Jael, a non-Israelite woman who kills the enemy Canaanite general Sisera when he comes to her tent for refuge. The Jewish legends depict Sisera as a giant of a man who could destroy the walls of an enemy’s city with a single shout. In some ways, it is another “David and Goliath” story. Enter Deborah…sitting under her palm tree proclaiming words of wisdom, she calls Barak, an experienced military general (but probably nothing like the great Sisera!). And she calls him to go against this great army.

Interestingly enough, the Book of Judges contains the largest number of female characters of any book in the Bible—nineteen in all. But Deborah is probably looked upon as at least one of the most influential female leaders in the Old Testament if not in the whole Bible. It is actually a little unclear whether the “wife of Lappidoth” reference was referring to the name of her husband or if it means that she was “fiery” or “spirited”. It could be either. Regardless, though, nothing is said about her husband if there was one. So Deborah is depicted as strong and level-headed, a true leader who advised generals and led troops into battle. In a day when woman were considered property or chattle, when women did not speak and it was assumed they had nothing to say, when women were only there to produce children and heirs, Deborah stepped forward and led.

Deborah is often depicted as sitting under a palm—just sitting. Perhaps that is as powerful a statement as the fact that she advised generals and led troops into battle. Maybe that was her way of centering, of filling her life with much-needed peace. Maybe sitting was the way she gained inner strength to do what needed to be done. Maybe she was in prayer. It doesn’t really say. She just sat.

I don’t think that this story is meant to compel us to focus on one hero. After all, Deborah called Barak to lead and he led armies defending Israel against Sisera’s troops. And Jael drove the peg into Sisera’s temple. They all worked together. This passage shows that God can work through even complex power systems with multiple leaders. God does not command one system or structure. God’s grace is always at work. So, if you’re looking for a hero, maybe God is the one.

We don’t read it as part of this lection, but Judges 5 includes what we call the “Song of Deborah”. It is a song of remembrance of what God had done through these rather unlikely people, a reminder that things don’t always go as expected, and a reminder that violence is never the ending. Violence is still part of us today. Surely God does not call us to violence. Is there a way to use it for good?

 

  1. What is your response to this passage?
  2. How do you see God at work in this passage?
  3. In what ways do you see God at work in the midst of our own social and political circumstances?
  4. What significance does the depiction of Deborah “just sitting” mean for you?
  5. Do you think that it is ever possible to use violence for good, to turn it around into something else?

  

NEW TESTAMENT: 1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11

http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=282056269

The Thessalonian letters are witnesses to the church’s struggle with the sufferings of its members, due to separation from leaders, alienation from friends and family, and threats of persecution and even death. The passage that we read speaks, obviously, of the coming “Day of the Lord”. Here, Paul claims that on this Day of the Lord, God will separate the believers from the unbelievers and for this reason, the believers can celebrate even now. But Paul continues to claim that the full consummation of the new age has not occurred and that, for this reason, believers must continue to be vigilante in the faith.

I don’t think that this is as much a “hold on, Friday’s coming”, as it is a reminder to not let the mire of difficulties and defeat get in the way of one’s true calling—the pursuit of holiness. In fact, rather than letting them get you down, perhaps they are part of that journey itself. And on that journey, we are called to encourage each other and help each other. After all, we are “children of the light”.

Much of this same imagery has been used in songs (such as the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”) and in a lot of slave songs, describing a future hope even in the face of darkness and persecution. The images here are apocalyptic. They are visions and revelations that remind us that our future is secure in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. The future coming of the Lord is not something to be feared. It is now. Rather than living in fear of what is to come, we are called to live in hopeful expectation for the glorious Kingdom that is breaking into our lives even as we speak. The “Day of the Lord” is now. Paul is not holding out something in the future but is instead trying to depict what a life pursuing holiness really looks like.

In Feasting on the Word, John E. Cole says that Jurgen Moltmann “declares that the coming of God should make believers “impatient” with the way the world is today.” That’s probably what Paul was trying to depict. He was not trying to scare people into repentance (in spite of what some modern-day tele-evangelists declare!); rather, he was trying to get them to see a different way and want it so badly, hold to it so tightly in hopeful expectation, that they could do nothing else but live into it, that they could do nothing else but walk in holiness.

 

  1. What meaning does this passage hold for you?
  2. Why are these images sometimes uncomfortable for us?
  3. What changes when you look upon them as “hopeful expectation” rather than fear?
  4. What would it mean for us to want God’s vision to come to fulfillment so badly that we could do nothing else?

 

GOSPEL: Matthew 25: 14-30

To read the Lectionary Gospel passage, click here

The passage that we read is the familiar “Parable of the Talents.” Here, though, a “talent” is a monetary unit. Yes, my friends, here Jesus is talking about money. Did you know that if we took all of Jesus’ teachings about money out of the Gospels, we would reduce them by more than one third? Did you know that sixteen of the thirty-eight parables attributed to Jesus are about money? Did you know that one of every seven verses in the first three Gospels in some way deals with money? In fact, Jesus spoke more often about money than about any other subject except the Kingdom of God itself? Now, my take on this is not that money is more important than other things. My take on it is that even in first-century society, money and people’s view of money was a problem—not because it’s bad or evil, but because it is so easy for we humans to fall into the trap of letting it reshape our lives into something that it’s not supposed to be, allowing it to rise to the top of our view, clouding our judgment, getting in the way of how we see each other, and somehow convincing ourselves that there is never enough to go around.

And in this parable, Jesus reminds us that, whether or not we receive equal shares of Creation’s bounty, God entrusts all of the resources that we have at our disposal to us. And, as stewards of these resources, we are called not to hoard them, not to let a fear of scarcity dig holes in our lives that we attempt to fill with material things, and not to let what we have deflect from the light we have been shown, pushing us out into the darkness. We are, rather, called to a life of abundance, recognizing that everything that we have comes from God and is given to us to use in the building of the Kingdom of God.

But if we don’t talk about money, how will we know that?   Jesus knew this and he knew the difficulties that we have. He knew that money and, specifically, the lack thereof, scares us. But he also knew that if we lose perspective of our money as a God-given resource, as a God-shared part of Creation, as a God-entrusted tool that we are called to use to build the Kingdom brick by brick, talent by talent, and dollar by dollar, we would lose that image of the one that God is calling us to be.

How much more applicable could a passage be for us today? We live in a world riddled with misuse of resources, saturated with greed, and filled with fear of what our economic future holds. You don’t have to go any farther than the front page of the paper, your living room, or access to the internet to see how bad it is. Apparently, what we need is a hero, of sorts. (Where is that wise woman sitting under the palm tree when you need her?) The truth is that the world around us probably makes this parable even more uncomfortable for us. Well, it has often been said that if a parable does not make you a little uncomfortable, you have probably not gotten its point. Several years ago at the height of our country’s economic collapse, CNN’s Anderson Cooper did a breakdown of the “top ten culprits of the collapse”—according to him the blame went to Congress, the White House, the banks, Goldman Sachs, Wall Street…I don’t know, I don’t remember the order. The point is, it’s not important. Because, in case you missed it, the number one culprit in Anderson Cooper’s countdown was you; in other words, it was all of us. And that third servant in the parable? That’s the one that hits a little too close to home. Thinking our voices too weak and our offering too meager, we are often guilty of burying those things that God has provided us. We are guilty of being afraid to use what God has given us. We instead hold onto what we think is “ours” a little too tightly until we literally suck the life out of it.

We do forget that everything that we have was God’s first and will be God’s when it is all said and done. In that respect, we are middle managers, stewards of that which is God’s. And the question then becomes, how do we as good managers invest God’s resources? How do we use our time, our talents, and our money? What do we do with those things with which God has entrusted us to further God’s kingdom? That is the whole reason why we have been entrusted to be stewards of these things. God knows that we are capable of getting it right, even if we haven’t yet convinced ourselves. God has given us resources beyond what we can count; indeed we are dealing in what could be termed heroic measures and all we’ve been asked to do is to be who God calls us to be.

John Westerhoff defines stewardship as “nothing less than a complete life-style, a total accountability and responsibility before God. Stewardship [he says] is what we do after we say we believe, that is, after we give our love, loyalty, and trust to God, from whom each and every aspect of our lives comes as a gift. As members of God’s household, we are subject to God’s economy or stewardship, that is, God’s plan to reconcile the whole world and bring creation to its proper end.” (John H. Westerhoff, III, Building God’s People in a Materialistic Society (New York: Seabury Press, 1983), 23, (as quoted by Ronald E. Vallet, Stepping Stones of the Steward (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s Publishing, 1989), 2)

So, being good managers of God’s economy means that all that God has given us is ours to use. It means that everything that we are should be used for God’s glory—our prayers, our presence, our monetary gifts, and our time and talents—all are used as witnesses to who God is and what God is doing in the world. Giving back of those resources, then, is something that we are indeed called to do. But it is more than that. It is an act of faith. It is the way that we prayerfully and faithfully offer ourselves to God. It is the way that we participate in the building of the Kingdom of God. So, what part of the Kingdom is ours to build? There…whatever you see is the part that is yours to build. Martin Luther said that “I have held many things in my hands and I have lost them all. But whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.”

But, obviously, there is something more here than money, something more than gifts. The point is that everything is of God. We are of God. We are called to offer ourselves to God. Our lives are lives of holiness. What is God calling us to do? What is it that give you life?

 

  1. What meaning does this passage hold for you?
  2. Why are we so uncomfortable talking about money, especially in church?
  3. What message does this hold for our society in light of our current economic times?
  4. How are we called to “invest” God’s resources?
  5. What part of God’s Kingdom is yours to build?
  6. How does this passage speak to that “hopeful expectation” that we talked about before?

 

 Some Quotes for Further Reflection:

 

Every noble life leaves its fiber interwoven forever in the work of the world. (John Ruskin)

 

Try, with God’s help, to perceive the connection—even physical and natural—which binds your labor with the building of the Kingdom of Heaven; try to realize that heaven itself smiles upon you and, through your works, draws you to itself; then, as you leave church for the noisy streets, you will remain with only one feeling, that of continuing to immerse yourself in God. (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

 

If my hands are fully occupied in holding on to something, I can neither give nor receive. (Dorothee Soelle) 

 

Closing

 

Behold a broken world, we pray, where want and war increase, and grant us, Lord, in this our day, the ancient dream of peace.

 

A dream of swords to sickles bent, of spears to scythe and space, the weapons of our warfare spent, a world of peace remade.

 

Bring, Lord, your better world to birth, your kingdom, love’s domain, where peace with God, and peace on earth, and peace eternal reign. Amen.

 

(Timothy Dudley-Smith, The United Methodist Hymnal, # 426)